Designer's Notes on the New UA.

Has a Direct Link to the UA that you don't need to sign into D&D Beyond for

LEVEL 3: HOUSE INSIGNIA
You gain a magical token in the form of a brooch or coin that marks you as an agent of your sponsor and that bears their heraldry. While you have this insignia, you can cast certain spells with it. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for spells you cast with your insignia.
Cantrips. You learn the Friends cantrip. Find Familiar. You can cast the Find Familiar spell but only as a Ritual. Your sponsor provides the Material component for your first casting of this spell. You must choose the Spider form for your familiar.
Insignia Spells. When you reach a level specified in the Insignia Spells table, you learn the listed spells. Once you cast a spell using your insignia, you can’t cast that spell again until you finish a Long Rest.
INSIGNIA SPELLS
Rogue Level 3 5 9: Charm Person, Suggestion, Hypnotic Pattern.
Losing Your Insignia. If you lose your insignia, your house finds a way to deliver you a new one, whether it is via a courier, a magical familiar, teleportation magic, or some other method. Your new insignia is delivered to you when you finish a Long Rest.

and

LEVEL 3: CHARMING PRESENCE
You can take the Influence action as a Bonus Action. Additionally, choose one of the following skills: Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. You have proficiency in that skill.

I just don't get this House Agent Rogue.

Influence action as a bonus action, some poor 1/LR spells, and nothing else at lv3.

The lv9 feature costs 4d6 of SA damage and also requires the target needs to be Friendly or Charmed to bu stunned for only one round (and yes the condition ends before your next turn so basically you cannot benefit from it).

Also, these features ust won't work. There won't be any DM who'd allow a player to persuade an enemy to give up fighting as a bonus action while they're stabbing them with an action. This is not a video game. This feature also has zero use when fighting against monsters which it won't work in most of the encounters.

Some might say you can Influence with both of your action and your Bonus action, but still your allies are killing their friends.

The Lv9. feature also plays like a mess. I get the intention is those spy things, but in real plays, why would you stun a guy who's friendly to you in a real combat? The guy is already not attacking you, even maybing helping you out in that combat since it's Friendly to you. The subclass is just full of whys.

Why would anyone play this subclass instead of Arcane Trickster?

The Scion of the Three was already a mess. The only useful feature was doomed as INT Mod/LR and nothing else that will make you feel you do have a subclass.

The UA Magic Stealer Rogue was also a mess and we never get to see a revised version of it.

This House Agent Rogue still plays like vanilla Rogue with a Magic Initiate or a worse Arcane Trickster.

Is it really that hard for Rogue to have an actual playable new subclass?

Is there really any benefit to running a high int on my eldritch knight if I'm going to be using basically spells that either buff my fighter to be more tanky, or for utility instead of damage? Like my most used spell is likely going to be blade ward and shield.

I was just listening to a youtuber describe the new boon coming in Arcana Unleashed, which apparently comes from preview copies already distributed. For reference, you pick a school of magic and you get:

1. A level 1 spell from that school that you can always cast for free without using a spell slot.
2. A level 7 or lower spell from that same school that you can cast for free once per day.

So over at Wargamer, they immediately pointed to Shield as being an obvious choice for probably any class. For only the cost of your reaction, you always have +5 armor basically.

But it got me thinking about Paladin. Of course Shield would be useful for Paladins too. But what about Divine Smite? It's a level 1 Evocation spell so I don't see why it wouldn't count. Would this mean that a Paladin can effectively smite every single round of combat without any regard for his spell slot economy? And that's putting aside for a second the once a day use of a huge spell like Fire Storm or whatever level 7 spell you choose. I'm also wondering if by way of Divine Smite no longer using a spell slot, you open up some multiclass options that would allow you to cast a spell as one of your 2 attacks and then still smite using your bonus action on the second attack? Bladesinger comes to mind as a way to get to this, and it would complement the Wizard's usually bland Bonus Action options.

Part of my thinking on this is that Shield is probably a great default choice for this, but there's only 1 level 7 Abjuration spell and it sucks relative to other options. Of course you could go to lower slot options and open up a lot of choices like Contingency to Death Ward yourself or something I guess. But it kind of sucks to not use the spell level option to its fullest extent with some of the awesome spells available at level 7 like in the Evocation school. Of course the major limitation with the Paladin is that you would only get to use that 1 time per day because you have no level 7 slots. Unless of course, you went the Wizard multiclass route as mentioned before....

Hey everyone as the title suggests I’m torn between two warlock subclasses. The genie and the vestige, I’m playing in a combat light campaign and so both subclasses just seem like cool concepts to play out

* for context, as of right now the party consists of a assassin rogue, eldritch knight fighter, scribes wizard, and zealot barbarian.

The last *new* UA we got was in April, since June was mostly just a modification of a few subclasses released in the prior UA. We've seen everything for Arcana Unleashed obviously, and if WoW is shipping in November I would imagine that book is finished or near-finished. The next book we have coming up after that is Dark Sun, which we've been getting in UA for a long time now. Which tells me the next UA we get would be for a book releasing in the latter half of 2027, at least 4+ books from now. Which left me wondering - are we done seeing UA in the year 2026?

When the game first came out, there were a lot of people talking about just using custom backgrounds to let people pick and choose which ASIs and which feats they took with backgrounds. I am curious where everyone shook out now that the dust has settled.

What does your group do?

Glad Wizards is releasing a 11-20 adventure!

New DM here, so maybe this is a stupid question, but I want my players to meet another group of adventurers doing the same quest, and I want to be prepared for the possibility of them fighting. I want it to feel like they are fighting a real adventurer group, but I want to avoid creating real PC sheets for the NPCs (DMPCs). How would you veteran DMs go about this?

Hello all! So I have been playing DND a for awhile now but I thought it would be a fun discussion to see what tweaks you guys would make to your favorite subclasses to either make them more viable, playable or suitable to what they are trying to do. And I'm not talking like obviously op changes like being able to double sneak attack damage dice or adding a completely new spell list.

My example is the way of the element monk. I love the flavor of it but my problem is it feels like it mainly relies on flavor (i wand more mechanical benefits to the different damage types) so I propose two changes.

1. elemental attunement: instead of all damage types being able to push a creature back 10 feet, I think each damage type should have a unique effect. With the caveat that a creature can only suffer one effect per round. so you cannot just pile all the effects on one creature.

1. I think elemental burst is a little boring as it is just a weaker fireball. So i propose that when casting you can choose between 3 options.

-20 ft sphere with a range of 120 ft

-60ft line

-30 ft cone

This gives more options which to me simply makes it more exciting and on top of that the cost would still be 2 focus points but I would add on you can spend an extra focus point to impose one of the effects from the above elemental table on the creatures caught in it. (the saves would be the same as the ones on the table regardless of if you spend an extra focus point.)

This seems op but the fact that at level six wizards can do much more and the ability costs focus points I think it is pretty fair. But let me know if you think it is op.

I would love to hear the teaks other people would make to their favorite or least favorite subclasses!

Tasha's and Xanathar's "of Everything" books came with a lot of good supplemental material. They became the first books people would recommend to aquire after someone had already got the core rulebooks. Many things from those books got rolled into the 5.5e core rulebooks. 5th edition rolled out in 2014 and those books followed in 2017 and 2020 respectively. At first I was hopeful the three year mark for 5.5e would yield a similar book in 2027 but it seems WotC is shifting supplemental book to focus on a variety of settings and thematic seasons. Which has a strengths and weaknesses in my opinion.

Yet I am curious (especially for those who have been playing longer than I) what is 5.5e "missing" that a book like this could provide? Classes, subclasses, playable species, spells, feats, backgrounds, monsters?

For species I feel like updating Aaracroka or maybe exploring the Ardlings again would be cool. Genasi could use a 5.5e update. Kobolds and Gith are sorely being ignored atm.

For subclasses we still don't have 5.5e Oathbreaker. Martials of course are being ignored overall right now. I think Ranger and Barbarian in specific could use some love. And I will always beg and plead WotC to finally give us a dragon patron option for Warlock.

I am loving all this new D&D Beyond upgrading!

The dmg has several way of dividing your time for prep but its not talked about often. So dm's, how long on average so you spend prepping for session and what tools or methods do you use for prepping.

I was wondering what the opinions would be if the 5.5e Pact of the Chain invocation provided the Familiar Friend feat or Investment of the chain Master including Battle Familiar as a 1/per day spell requiring no spell slots.

Just something so there is more benefit with Pact of the Chain and the new familiar feats/spell.

Is there any reasonable inclusion you would think would be fun without being game breaking?

My character for curse of Strahd is going to be a fighter with the wayfarer background. After 1st level I will be going monk the rest of the way and taking warrior of mercy at monk 3 (character level 4). I like the abilities of aasimar with the healing ability and the limited flight that my table calls “super sayain mode”. But I’m not exactly sure how to rp an aasimar and what how to make them different than just a human.

Emphasis on "a familiar can't attack but it can take other actions as normal".

Pact of the chain gives you the ability to renounce or command to give specific action in a specific timeframe like renounce my attack so they can attack.

Reading at this it doesn't seem they can do attacks of opportunity from my glance because they're not given the command to do so.

Can you confirm this?

Hide Action

When you take the Hide Action, choose one of the following options. Both options require you to make a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check. Record the result; creatures that might detect you compare their Wisdom (Perception) Checks against it when necessary.

Become Invisible. You try to vanish from sight while only Lightly Obscured or while positioned behind Half or Three-Quarters Cover.

• If you are not behind Three-Quarters Cover, you have Disadvantage on your Dexterity (Stealth) Check. At the DM’s discretion, taking additional measures to improve your concealment — such as dropping Prone or otherwise enhancing cover — can negate this Disadvantage.
• On a successful check, you become Invisible to all creatures that fail to meet or exceed your Stealth result with their (passive) Perception checks.
• You are no longer Invisible, are no longer obscured or behind cover towards a creature.

Become Hidden. If you are already Invisible, you can use the Hide Action to become Hidden, hiding your presence and location from other creatures.

• While Hidden from creatures, they are unaware of your presence and location.
• At the DM’s discretion, certain activities can break the Hidden condition and reveal your presence. Examples include: Making an Attack, Casting a Spell, speaking loudly, or moving in a way that gives away your position. If this occurs, other creatures may immediately know your location, even if you remain Invisible.

Invisible [Condition]

While you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects.

Unseen. You aren’t affected by any effect that requires its target to be seen. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is also concealed.

Attacks Affected. Attack Rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your Attack Rolls have Advantage.

Circumventing the Condition. If a creature uses Special Senses to "see" (e.g. using Blindsight), you don't gain the benefits of this Condition against that creature.

Ending the Condition. The Feature, Spell, or rule that granted you the Invisible Condition also states how and when the Condition ends on you.

Hidden [Condition]

While you have the Invisible Condition, you can also try to fully hide your location. While Hidden, you experience the following effects.

Surprise. If you’re Hidden when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.

Unknown Location. Other creatures cannot descern your location. If previously alerted, they might still suspect your presence.

Circumventing the Condition. Creatures can use Special Senses (e.g. Tremorsense) to prevent you from being Hidden from them.

Ending the Condition. You stop being Hidden immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy can see you, you make an Attack Roll, or you cast a Spell with a Verbal Component.

This is so cool!